In a traditional email system, the email server just receives an email from one user, and forwards the email to another user. When involving broadcast of an email, the email server still receives the email from one user and send the email to multiple users. In this situation, it will cause extra data flow on the network if broadcasting the same large mail.
In the prior art, email sending schemes for reducing the network data flow are known, which mainly focus on email attachments. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 7,054,905B1, entitled “Replacing an email attachment with an address specifying where the attachment is stored”, there is disclosed replacing an email attachment with an address specifying where the attachment is stored. In such a solution, the attachment is stored in a file server, with URL indicating the attachment in the email.
In U.S. Pat. No. 7,113,948B2, entitled “Methods and Systems for Email Attachment Distribution and Management”, there i+++s disclosed methods and systems for email attachment distribution and management, where the attachment is extracted into a database and send the email without the attachment to the recipient, so as to reduce the load of the email server.
In U.S. Pat. No. 2005/0193070A1, entitles “Providing a portion of an electronic mail message based upon a transfer rate, a message size, and a file format”, there is disclosed a method for uploading downloading by each individual email user based upon a transfer rate, a message size, and a file format. The method includes determining whether it is desirable to provide less than all of an electronic mail message and determining a format associated with the electronic mail message in response to determining that it is desirable to provide less than all of the electronic mail message. The method also includes selecting a portion of the electronic mail message using the determined format and providing the selected portion of the electronic mail message.
In U.S. Pat. No. 2006/0277257A1, entitled “Minimizing data transfer from POP3 servers”, there is disclosed systems and methods that facilitate minimizing data transfer from a post office protocol (POP) server to a client device by employing a date filter with a predefined date range and applying a message body size threshold above which only a message header will be downloaded to conserve bandwidth and memory space on the client device. A user can request download of a message for which only a message header was originally downloaded if the header comprises information of interest to the user.